Day: June 8, 2012

A federal judge has told the Obama administration that all Americans are protected by her preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of a citizen detention clause in a new federal law supported by Obama.

The federal government had told the judge it concluded that her recent ruling exempted only the named plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the provision.

That interpretation would have enabled the government to enforce the detention provision against all Americans except the plaintiffs.

U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest shot back in a new Memorandum Opinion and Order yesterday that said because the possible injury to Americans includes the loss of their rights, her order was intended to protect everyone.

“The injunction in this action is intentionally expansive because ‘persons whose expression is constitutionally protected [and not party to the instant litigation] may well refrain from exercising their rights for fear of criminal sanctions by a statute susceptible of application to protected expression,’” Forrest wrote.

On May 16 she issued a preliminary injunction banning enforcement of Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act. The section allows indefinite detention of people designated by the government as terrorists or terror-linked.

The law allows them to be held without hearing, charges or bond – essentially without their civil rights. And their detention can be indefinite.

The Obama administration asked for reconsideration and said it was interpreting the injunction as a protection only for the individual plaintiffs.

A high-school principal told Oscar-winner Gerald Molen he could not deliver his speech because he is a “right-wing conservative;” on Friday, a district official apologized.

Gerald Molen won a best picture Oscar for co-producing Schindler’s List with Steven Spielberg and has produced such Hollywood blockbusters as the first two Jurassic Park films and Twister. He’s a former U.S. Marine and is a sought-after motivational speaker.

So he’s not accustomed to being shunned.

Such was the case, though, when he was invited to speak to the graduating class at a Montana high school. But upon arriving, was told by the principal he would not be allowed to deliver the speech he had prepared.

The reason, he believes, is politics.

Molen is one of those rare conservatives in Hollywood (he’s even making a documentary called 2016, based on the Dinesh D’Souza book The Roots of Obama’s Rage) and because of that, he says, Ronan High School principal Tom Stack decided to disinvite him — and he didn’t tell him so until after Molen made the 90-minute drive from his home in Bigfork, Mont.

Unlike Hollywood, Ronan isn’t exactly a hotbed of liberalism (its state representative is a Republican), still, Molen says that Stack told him straight up that he wouldn’t be allowed to address the students because he was “a right-wing conservative.”

The cost of college tuition has skyrocketed in recent years and the issue has become a leading cause among members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, who claim education is fundamental right. They might be happy to know that help is finally on the way… for illegal immigrants.

Metro State College of Denver trustees on Thursday voted 7-1 in favor of a plan that will give illegal aliens a 58 percent tuition break, making them the first college in the country to lower tuition for non-citizens, CBS4 in Denver reports. The state legislature could decide to reduce state funding as a result, one Colorado lawmaker says.

State lawmakers shot-down a bill that would have lowered tuition for illegal immigrations during their last session. Further, CBS4 reports similar laws have been defeated five times in the last nine sessions.

CBS4 in Denver breaks down the details of the new tuition guidelines:

About 300 students would benefit from the tuition change. Those students would also have to meet admission standards. The plan would cut the cost of tuition in half for those students.

The new tuition rate breaks down like this: $6,716.60 per year for a full-time undocumented immigrant student. This compares to nearly $15,985 per year for out-of-state tuition and $4,304.40 per year for in-state tuition.

The new rate will take effect this fall.

Metro State College of Denver will officially change its name to Metro State University of Denver on July 1.

Some of America’s top left-leaning publications are sounding alarm bells after release of a “terrifying” report warning that global warming and overpopulation will soon lead to “mass extinctions” of humanity.

“The situation ‘scares the h– out of me,’ said one author of the [report],” writes “green” blogger Justin Gillis of the New York Times. “‘We’ve created this enormous bubble of population and economy. … It’s either got to be deflated gently, or it’s going to burst.’”

Alexander Abad-Santos of The Atlantic’s “Wired” blog also wrote about the report, which was published in the scientific journal Nature earlier this week, in an entry called “The World as We Know It Is About to End, Say Some Really Frightened Scientists.”

“A new study by 22 biologists and ecologists has found that environmental changes on our planet are reaching a point of no return that leads to mass extinctions,” writes Abad-Santos. “And as The Atlantic’s James Fallows, who pointed out this terrifying study to us, writes, this could be the most important news of 2012.”

The Atlantic then refers back to the Times, quoting: “How soon do these scientists expect the world as we know it to end? Gillis writes, ‘within a few human generations, if not sooner.’”

The heart of the scientists’ claim, as Gillis explains it, is that humans have used up 43 percent of the ice-free land surface on earth, and if that number tops 50 percent, “the ecological web can collapse.”

Gillis concedes that the 22 authors of the report “will be accused of alarmism” and reveals the scientists admitted some of their conclusions are based on guesswork. Nonetheless, Gillis insists, the report comes at an important time for international, political action on “global warming.”

The 86-year-old comic brought his shtick to the AFI’s Shirley MacLaine tribute; likened the president to a janitor.

Don Rickles nearly hijacked the American Film Institute’s tribute to Shirley MacLaine on Thursday night at Sony Pictures Studios, unleashing a trademark barrage of insults that took aim at President Obama, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and the honoree herself.

“I shouldn’t make fun of the blacks,” Rickles said, and then proceeded to do just that: “President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke.”

The black-tie crowd, gathered to celebrate MacLaine, the 40th recipient of the AFI’s Life Achievement Award, alternately gasped at the 86-year-old comic’s put-downs and then found themselves laughing and applauding.

“Shirley,” Rickles, living up to his moniker as Mr. Warmth, began as he rose to his feet from a table near the center of the room. “I never read your books, and I don’t plan to.”

Turning to MacLaine’s brother Beatty, he continued, “I know your brother very well, and I never liked him.”

Shifting his focus to Nicholson, who also was present, Rickles cracked, “He’s not here tonight – he’s with the Lakers, oiling their jocks.”

A former Weather Channel anchor is suing the network, claiming her status as an Air Force reserve officer got her fired.

Nicole Mitchell said this week her contract was not renewed in 2010 because Weather Channel management did not want to contend with the time she took off for her military duties, the Marietta Daily Journal reported. She has accused the Weather Channel and its parent companies of violating her rights under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.

Mitchell, who holds the rank of captain, was an on-air meteorologist for the network for seven years. She said the trouble started after the Weather Channel was sold in 2008 to NBC Universal and private equity firms Bain Capital and the Blackstone Group. She told Fox News that management told her she would have to get clearance before taking any Air Force assignments.

“I was told in an email, ‘before you agree to military duty, you need to clear it through us first,’” Mitchell told Fox. “If you don’t show up for orders, you could be court-martialed.”